Salt Dough In Real Life

With the holiday season approaching, we pinners are all scrambling for adorable heartfelt gifts for friends and family.  I've seen pins everywhere from delicate and beautiful like this, to downright homely like this but I knew there was a happy medium that would be realistic in...ya know...real life

My sweet little Chuplicates and I decided to take this project on together.  For the most part they enjoyed it.  Little P has some sensory issues so she would have none of the dough, but she did put a few buttons on it, so hers is easy to pick out.  L Belle had a blast with it and even tried to taste some.  Fortunately it's all edible.

1 part flour

1 part salt

1/2 part water (give or take)

stir stir stir, squish squish, and press something into it.

Don't forget to poke a hole in the top to hang it by

There is very little to limit your creativity, but there are a few things to consider.

- The larger your child, the harder it will be to get their entire hand on a reasonable sized ornament

- You have the option to dry it out in the oven or just let it sit out for a few days. We let it air dry because our oven is unreliable

- The texture looks a good bit like a sand dollar and is pretty on it's own but can be painted

- You could incorporate glitter into the dough and/or food coloring to spice it up a little

- Writing can be done with the end of a toothpick

Since Little P wouldn't give us a handprint, we resorted to the dogs

Illy the dog's creation

 After 24 hours of air drying on plastic baggies the bottoms were wet...go figure

a quick flip and another 24 hours and all was well

I probably would bake them next time just to speed up the process.

A quick coat of some metallic gold acryllic paint and some sparkly red pipe cleaners to hang them with and we were feeling festive!

CrockPot Caramel In Real Life

Here is the original link

The Match Up

Now in blog-land it's beautiful and party ready.  In real life it's a little chunky....but oh so yummy!

This seems too simple to really work. Put a can in the crock pot and leave it there, then open it and it's delicious? Too good to be true. But it really is!

Now in the interest of "keepin it real" lets talk details.

Cons
-it tastes more like dulce de leche than caramel
-it can get a gritty type of texture if it gets too hot for too long
(like in the bottom of the can)
- it left a ring from the bottom of the can in my crock pot

Pros
-they say that you have to let it cool completely in the can before you open it, but I think if you
  open it while it's still rather liquid it would make a great icing to pour over cakes
- it's really delicious with apples
- it tastes even better the next day
- it's completely fool proof! (no standing over the stove with a candy thermometer)

Take the paper off of the can

submerge the can in water

cook for 8 hours on low

This is the strange ring it left on my crock pot

It looks a bit gross at first but it thickens quickly

A few possible uses:

- pour this over a cake or cupcakes as icing (let me know how that goes)

-put into a graham cracker pie crust and top with whipped cream

- serve as a dip with fruits

-stir it into hot coffee 

-eat it by the spoonful

Alternate plan could be to put the sweetened condensed milk into canning jars with the lids on and cook them that way so that when they are cooled they are ready for bows and gifting.  It worked out amazingly.  I ended up able to stack 6 of the little buggers in my crockpot at a time!  I got the jars on sale as well as the sweetened condensed milk and each one cost me $1.50 to make.  The caramel is DELICIOUS with green apples and looks so fancy in the little jars!  Don't be surprised if you see some of these from me for Christmas!

Here is a little photographic proof of my attempt. 

 

All in all I would recommend this pin with the knowledge that it is being done in Real Life

If there are any other pins you would like to see tried in real life, let me know!